Poe’s Woes At Byers-Evans

Take a second to imagine Edgar Allan Poe’s chamber, at whose door the Raven so famously tapped, and chances are what you’re picturing looks a lot like the Byers-Evans House. “The setting couldn’t be more perfect,” says Maggie Stillman, executive producer of the Byers-Evans House Theatre Company, which tonight hosts a 7:30 p.m. Halloween showing of An Evening With Edgar Allan Poe. “The house was built in 1883, and it’s been meticulously restored; it’s kind of eerie, this big Victorian mansion. For Poe, it’s just completely fitting, especially in the library.”
That library, in addition to many another quaint and curious volume of forgotten lore, is home to a complete set of Poe first editions.

And it’ll be home to more Poe tonight, when the theater troupe tackles literary adaptations of a number of Poe classics as well as some lesser-known works. The idea, explains Stillman, is to re-create the experience of the stories and poems being read while trimming some of the narrative and making room for actors. “It’s acted out in what I call a tableau format,” Stillman explains,” so they adopt different vocalizations for the characters and take on different personas, but it’s all very suggestive.” And as a bonus, tonight only, Stillman will tell a few of her own ghost stories after the show. “This house,” she intimates, “is absolutely haunted.”